"... one of the ways writing has changed: books from a century or two ago spent huge swaths of text describing locations and character traits, but modern writing does all of this in shorthand. You might know a character is short with blond hair and blue eyes, but the author leaves the rest for you to figure out on your own. The writer might tell you the story takes place at a beachside town, but leaves the details to your imagination. Why do you suppose this is? Is it that we have shorter attention spans these days? That, bombarded with video and photos as we are, we don’t NEED every detail of an unknown scene described, because we have a stock of images already in our heads?"
Information overload - one blessing (or curse) of post modern age communication and media. Readers and writers alike deal with it in ways that are ideally best for them. However, I enjoy excellent descriptions. If it's there I am happy. If it's not then I'm glad I exist in an age where everywhere there is more than enough to help the imagination.
"Sometimes things are more important than we are, more important than our little fights."
These are 13 Greek words mentioned in Maeve Binchy's Nights of Rain and Stars. Some words may come in handy for someone visiting Greece for either a few days or two weeks, the length of time characters in the book spent in Aghia Anna. I will find out which of these will I be hearing or using often if I find myself in Greece one of these days.
1. k a l i m e r a - a greeting which means good day or good morning
2. a v r i o - tomorrow
3. o r e a - wonderful, beautiful
4. e f h a r i s t o - thank you
5. s i g n o m i - sorry
6. s i g a - slow down
7. p a m e - let's go
8. y i a t i - why
9. k r a s s i - wine
10. b o z o u k i - plucked string instrument
11. endaxi- all right
12. O m o n i a - the metro stop
13. P a n a i y a - the Virgin Mary; online sources have a variant spelling as in Panaiga
Interesting list of words. Glad you're enjoying Binchy; she is one of my favorites.
ReplyDeleteI have a hard time reading books with lots of words from other languages, with no translation available. Sometimes I can figure things out from the context.
ReplyDeleteHere's MY BTT POST
Ah! I love this post! The words you have translated. Because I was in Rhodes last year and in Cyprus recently, so I sure know them (not all though). Thanks for the reminder. :-)
ReplyDeleteFound you through the Thursday Favorite Things Blog Hop.
An interesting vocabulary list. I've been spending the past week among Greek and Roman gods through Rick Riordan's "Heroes of Olympus" series (shared in a Tuesday post). This week's T13: Olbrich Botanical Gardens
ReplyDeleteis the quote on fights from Nights of Rain and Stars too?
ReplyDeleteefharisto. good to know.
I enjoy description in books.
ReplyDeletehttp://tributebooksmama.blogspot.com/2013/09/booking-through-thursday_19.html